


This is M0st DisturbiNg

by palered



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Paranoia, What-If, Y2KVR, based the two users off myself and another person who seemed interested in the idea, benrey's not exactly here but he gets mentioned, don't know how to describe this au without just naming it, see notes for clarification about the original characters situation, sure why not, they're not really original characters, unreality, zalgo text gets used a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25277014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palered/pseuds/palered
Summary: A drabble based on a 'what if' I thought of for @ year2000electronics ' Y2KVR AU.What if the email collective got infected?What if Team Gordon was compromised, feeding him bad advice with him none the wiser?
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	This is M0st DisturbiNg

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bimothra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimothra/gifts).



**You have: 0 new emails.  
  
You have: 0 new emails.  
  
You have: 0 new emails.**  
  
Gordon woke up about an hour ago, expecting to see a barrage of emails from individuals with varying intentions in his inbox. He'd been putting it off, actually, thanks to a fair amount of persistent users trying to sabotage him. Most of them told him to open Benrey's letters. It seemed that for every one person actually interested in helping him escape, there were five more siding with Benrey. He didn't understand it. His _life_ was at stake, and people were treating it like a game!  
  
But when he finally relented and opened the inbox...  
  
**You have: 0 new emails.**  
  
At first, he thought it was a glitch. Maybe he'd gotten so many emails that the system that told him how many there were overflowed and reset back to say none? He wasn't a computer expert, but he knew that things like the NES had overflow glitches. A value could only go up to some number he didn't remember before resetting back to zero. Sure, that was 1985, but maybe it could apply here too!  
  
Combing through the emails to check how many he'd gotten manually didn't help either. Yeah, his memory wasn't the greatest, but he was pretty sure he'd already seen all these.  
  
**You have: 0 new emails.**  
  
Huh. A frown settling on his face, he bit his lip, trying to brainstorm more ideas. He'd like to say that maybe they knew he was going to sleep and just decided not to send him anything until he woke up, but he knew these people. Some of them had sent really nasty things that he did his best to ignore. They wouldn't just decide to all stop.  
  
**You have: 0 new emails.**  
  
Another theory... this last night had been the first he'd properly put the computer in sleep mode. The other times, he ended up just passing out. There could be some sort of feature that prevented messages from getting through in sleep mode. It'd be the first he'd ever heard of something like that—in any program, not just this one—but it was possible, at least. How to confirm that, though...?  
  
Ah! Doctor Coomer! He seemed to know everything about Y2KVR, so if anyone was going to know, it'd be him. "Hey, Doctor Coomer?"  
  
"Hello, Gordon!" Chipper as ever as he popped up. It was honestly kinda weird how they disappeared like that.  
  
"So, uh, I had a question about the program. Is there, like... some sort of feature that makes it so messages don't come through when the computer's in sleep mode?" Please say yes. Please let it be a simple answer.  
  
"The email function allows messages to be received at any time!"  
  
There went that theory. Gordon managed to grimace, barely concealing disappointment. "Thanks."  
  
"Always happy to help, Gordon!"  
  
**You have: 0 new emails.**  
  
He didn't have any more explanations. Say it was from the memory degradation he'd experienced the last few days, or the fact that his mind seemed to have been slowed down to compensate for the computer's lackluster quality, whatever- he couldn't come up with anything more.   
  
Nothing rational, at least.  
  
**You have: 0 new emails.**  
  
As the time with no new interaction dragged on, he found himself plagued with worst-case scenarios. _What if the people who were talking to him couldn't get through to him anymore, and now he'd lost all human contact?_ **What if his computer broke while he was stuck in it, and now there was no way to get out?** _ **God, what if the world had ended while he was stuck here?**_  
  
**You have: 1 new email.**  
  
**You have: 2 new emails.  
  
You have: 4 new emails.**  
  
Thank God. The 'ding!' of new messages rang repeatedly in his ears, and he let out a sigh of relief. His worries were unfounded. Hopefully these messages were from people with good, or at least neutral intent. He didn't think he'd be able to handle any harassment, not in his current state.  
  
Two emails telling him to open the letters. God damn it.  
  
The other two, thankfully, were from handles he recognized! Not only that, but they'd seemed dedicated to helping him this whole time! One person's handle mentioned flowers, and the other the nighttime. Or maybe knights? He'd never made up his mind on which one it was.  
  
Having worked himself up into a frenzy mere minutes earlier, Gordon simply didn't have the mental faculty to see through the solace the familiar handles brought him. Maybe if he was in a better state, he'd have noticed how their typing styles had changed. Flower usually typed with proper capitalization and punctuation, and they almost never used exclamation points. Knight, on the other hand, switched between all lowercase and proper capitalization on occasion, but still...   
  
**You have: 0 new emails.**  
  
What was he doing yesterday?   
  
Right. Combing through his desktop to try and see if there was anything relevant to getting him out of here. Yesterday was when Forzen somehow got infected too...  
  
Best not to think about that. Bubby fixed it, so it was okay. Hopefully they'd learn to not get infected soon? Please? Please, hope for Gordon?  
  
Wow, his thoughts were really weird today. He turned back to the emails.  
  
**You have: 1 new email.**  
  
Wait, was that Knight again? What were they doing? Apologizing... warning him about something? They didn't specify what they were apologizing for.   
  
Huh. Probably nothing. Maybe they got an error and didn't think their email went through. That had happened to him a fair number of times. If nothing else, he appreciated their concern.   
  
Hey, Flower's message was still open. He got kinda distracted with his thoughts, so he didn't really process what it said. Worth another read, at least. Skimming through it, he let his shoulders relax. Finally, some advice on what to do. Well, not advice, but they were asking about that weird diary file from yesterday. Saying that maybe there was a way to restore it? Even if he was stuck, his computer was still a computer, one he was the administrator for. And that file seemed worth another look through, since it was so suspicious- Gordon didn't recognize it, after all.  
  
That... actually made a lot of sense. Sure, he didn't recall writing the file, but he definitely had data recovery software on the computer. It should still work from the inside, and what harm could there be in at least attempting to bring the file back up? Even if it didn't work, he could say he tried, so people knew not to suggest it again.  
  
To be honest, the hard part was keeping Benrey distracted, but it seemed like the emails were doing that for him. Something about Bubby and Doctor Coomer... Part of his brain worried, but most of it pushed that aside in favor of focusing on his new lead. It wouldn't take very long, and there was always the emails who actually had common sense there to act as a buffer. Just a little longer...  
  
There!   
  
**You have: 10 new emails.**  
  
Unimportant. Shaking his head, he shoved the panel away, letting it close. Finally one of his leads had gotten him somewhere; he wasn't going to let Benrey's email minions distract him. Not now.  
  
**Open MY_DIARY.txt**  
  
He opened the restored file.  
  
**I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!**  
  
_**The same as the corrupted RadioTVSolutions page.**_  
  
Barely suppressing a yelp of surprise, he backpedaled immediately, closing and deleting the file. Who knew if it could corrupt him? It was far better to be safe than sorry.   
  
Every time. Every single fucking time. Now he couldn't even scream, or else risk alerting Benrey to what he'd just attempted. Every time, every single _fucking_ time he got his hands on a lead, Benrey had to ruin it. Who else would it be? No one else except his email groupies wanted to sabotage him this much, and none of them had the power to ruin the file directly. Only Benrey could.  
  
**You have: 25 new emails.**  
  
God, the letter emails multiplied again. They still took up most of his inbox, to the point that even other users' jokes about going to sulk in Coolmathgames gave him a welcome reprieve.  
  
More emails from Knight and Flower.   
  
[FLOWER] said: Bah, i really thought that would work. Either way, look on the bright side! Now we know the file was important. Really, would it have been messed up if it wasn't? Er, i'm really sorry that it turned out the way it did, actually. You know how it goes by now, but we're here supporting you!  
  
[KNIGHT] said: Hello, gordon! wE messed up this time, huh? guess your Luck won't let anything go right. but chin uP! we're gonna be here to help you through this no Matter what life throws at us! i beliEve in you!  
  
**You have: 0 new emails.**  
  
He still didn't recognize the ill-suited cheerfulness in the messages, far too caught up in having lost another lead.  
  
Poor Gordon. Led astray by people he thought he could trust when he had no one else to turn to.  
  
**You have: 4̸͋̔̐̈͜,̴̞̤͆̄2̶̘̆͊͌͛9̸̩̬̟̽̌͊4̴̛͇̫̫,̶͚̜̙͈͒̓̑̌9̶̩̝̭̓͗̍6̶͙͕̦̺̇̃̏7̴̧̛̠͉̈́̓́,̶̈́̇͠ͅ2̶̢̡̛̪9̸̭̃̊͂͜5̴̢̛̊ new ļ̸͔̭̜̻͎̠̩̋̄̐͐͋̄͛̚o̷̞͉͎̞̝͗͗͐̓͐̔͠v̸̠̜̲̣̊̂̀̌̕ͅẽ̵̻̼̩̱̖͖̖͛͋̏͋̆͠͠ ̷͎͕̹̰͌̿l̵͚̮͎͐̽̿̓̈́ę̴̛̲̺̹̗̩̲̒̋͠t̴̡̯̳͚͈̦͕͑̈́̚t̸̡̛̟̞͒ͅȅ̵͖̓́͐̈́ŗ̸̯̮̋̃s̴̭͇͋̒̓̓͊̎̈͘ͅ.**

**Author's Note:**

> Said this in the tags, but the users Flower and Knight are actually myself and Tumblr user flameintheblacknight, some of Team Gordon's big supporters. I added them because they responded to my idea, and talked about the struggle of trying to stay on Team Gordon or abandon him for the more fun lovecore bit, so I had them be reaching out for help!
> 
> Too bad Gordon's kind of preoccupied (I'd say dumb, but I don't want to be rude to my main man) and didn't notice.
> 
> Title comes from... well, I don't know if there's an original song, but I got it from a mashup submitted as part of Siivagunner's King for Another Day tournament. Just look it up on Youtube and you should find it. I was going through my music looking for a fitting song, because I honestly suck at titling my works, and I thought it fit nicely!
> 
> I doubt anyone's gonna recognize the significance of that number (I can explain if you want), but it is significant! Just in a very specific way.
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone!


End file.
